We finally ordered our new windows and
they should arrive in about 4 weeks. A big step in our renovation planning. We ordered 3 windows for now; one for the
bathroom and two for the kitchen.
Our current windows are
commercial aluminum with brown frames and tinted glass. There is nothing wrong
with our windows other than the fact that two of them don’t open and
the others have only tiny sliders at the bottom. The sliders don’t provide much ventilation
and they don’t seal well. Also, I am not a big fan of the brown frames and the
tinted glass. See for yourself.
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| Our current kitchen windows |
We want to have windows that open fully
– casement style – especially in the kitchen and upstairs bedrooms. We could easily cool off the house in the summer by releasing the hot air accumulated upstairs. Also, we are
considering going without an exhaust fan for our new gas stove (I know, very non-comformist move). Instead, we will rely on opening our windows
in the kitchen for ventilation; the old fashioned way. We will save money on
our electricity bill and have a healthier environment.
Our starting point for the window
research was Homestars
http://homestars.com/on/toronto. We met with 4 window salesmen and received quotes for the replacement
of all our windows. At that point we were looking at vinyl windows, even though
we felt it just didn’t make sense to rip out aluminum windows and replace them
with vinyl. After some research we learned that although vinyl windows are the
cheapest they are potentially the worst window frames you can buy for health and environmental reasons. We quickly abandoned the vinyl idea and
looked for other alternatives. We considered wood frames but felt they might be
too high maintenance and were concerned that they were chemically treated. We
also looked into fiberglass, which is highly recommended as a window frame
material by many. The two Ontario based fiberglass window manufacturers we
looked at had some questionable references on Homestars and we did not feel
comfortable buying from either of them.
In the end we decided to go with aluminum
casement style windows with LOW-E solar gain glass that are Energy Star
qualified. Every window sales person wanted to persuade us to buy vinyl. Although
aluminum frames are mainly used for commercial applications in Canada, we like them because they don’t off-gas, don’t warp over time, last longer than vinyl,
are maintenance free and have thermal breaks that make them more energy
efficient. They are slightly more expensive than vinyl, but we felt they would
be the healthiest window frames we could get.
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| Window shopping in the showroom |
For the window installers we picked
Encore Windows
http://www.encorewindows.com/ . They have excellent
references on Homestars and work with Aluminum Window Designs. We also felt
very comfortable with their sales rep, Dave, who was really patient with our
needs. He accommodated our request to
use 0 VOC caulking and foam for the installation. He was the only rep that
actually listened to our concerns and understood our need to use healthier
materials. He even arranged to have the
vinyl jamb replaced with an aluminum one.
We went with the classic white colour
for the frames, inside and out. Misha needed a bit of persuasion about the
white. He REALLY likes the brown frames. I persuaded him with my MS Publisher mock-up. He took one look at the
pictures and was a convert. Phew......that worked :)
We can’t wait for our new windows to
arrive!
Mia
